WEYMOUTH – After months of closed-door negotiations, Mayor Susan Kay says she will back sending a proposal to overhaul the stalled SouthField project to the Legislature – with some limits.

Kay said she and the town’s attorneys from the firm Burns & Levinson will provide an update at a town council meeting scheduled for Thursday night on the negotiations with Starwood Land Ventures, the majority landowner and recently fired master developer at SouthField.

Lawmakers and state officials have to begin reviewing the proposal if there’s going to be any chance for the Legislature to act on it by Starwood’s deadline of July 31 when the Legislature’s formal session ends, Kay said.

But she said the version that’s going to Beacon Hill can’t make it to an actual vote until Starwood and the town nail down safeguards to protect the town from incurring debt or financial strain from assuming greater responsibility for the largest stake in the redevelopment of the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station. Those details will be spelled out in a separate agreement that can be settled while lawmakers do their review, she said.

“I understand the timeline on the hill,” Kay said. “We all know that something has to happen. I don’t know if this is the perfect way to go about it, but it is a way and I feel we’ve covered the ways it could put the town in jeopardy.”

Starwood wants the Legislature to approve sweeping changes that would slash authority from the project’s quasi-governmental overseer, South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp., and shift responsibility for public services to Weymouth, Rockland and Abington. Each town would also be able to collect property taxes on its section.

Starwood and Tri-Town have blamed each other for the project grinding to a near halt and failing to attract commercial developers. Starwood has threatened to walk off the project if the Legislature doesn’t approve the changes by the end of the month. Tri-Town last week upped the ante and fired Starwood as master developer over a billing dispute.

Starwood unveiled its proposal in October. The town council vetted it for months before handing it off to the mayor and the town’s lawyers in April. Councilors and lawmakers have been getting anxious to see progress as the clock runs out.

Council President Patrick O’Connor said Thursday’s meeting could be a turning point.

“We’ve had a lot of meetings and I believe this is the culmination of all of those meetings,” he said. “I really do believe we’re going to be able to make this work.”

Page 2 of 2 - Starwood has also offered to take over responsibility from Tri-Town to find and hook up sources of water and sewerage. Starwood also wants the state to take over the cost of finishing a parkway across the former base, something that could be a tough sell on Beacon Hill. Meanwhile, Tri-Town and other critics have said the deal will end up saddling the towns with debt and costing them local control.

Starwood Vice President Matthew Barry said in a written statement that he’s looking forward to Thursday’s meeting.

“We hope we can reach an agreement with the town of Weymouth that, if approved, will allow us to realize the potential of SouthField, providing Weymouth and the South Shore with a vital new economic engine while creating thousands of new jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue,” Barry said in the statement, which was provided by a spokesperson.

Rockland and Abington have yet to endorse Starwood’s proposal.

Christian Schiavone may be reached at cschiavone@ledger.com or follow him on Twitter @CSchiavo_Ledger.